The Hague’s council unanimous in adopting Balkenende pay ceiling

THE HAGUE – Organizations coming to The Hague’s municipal council for grants have been put on notice not to expect any sympathy for funding requests if they reward managers with pay higher then the so-called JP-norm or balkenende ceiling (named after the former premier whose 2005 salary level originally became the norm) which was about 128,000 euros in September, 2007. The pay ceiling for officials of publicly owned or funded agencies or organizations was created to voluntarily rein in runaway salary entitlements, especially paid by housing corporations and government-owned agencies, but which is now also applied in some places to groups seeking grants from municipalities. The Hague's council was unanimous in its decision. There are still signals that compliance is being resisted within the housing corporations sectory. The minister also responsible for housing, Piet Hein Donner (Internal Affairs) recently expressed his regret that the salaries and stipends of the directors of these entities, founded with public funding, again increased (by 1.6 percent in 2009) while in his view there should have been a decrease. Donner now seems to be willing to legislate a salary and stipend ceiling for directors of public entities.